The Dynastic Plan
by frazzledsoul
Summary: Logan ponders his future. Oneshot. Takes place during AYITL.


_So Logan and Rory in the revival huh? There's so much about their relationship that begs for more context that we're never going to get. So I figured I might try to fill in some of the gaps. None of this is to excuse any of their actions or even to necessarily argue for their relationship, but to try to get into Logan's headspace and figure out what the heck he was thinking._

 _This fic takes places in the same general universe as The Morning After, but generally has little to do with it: technically, it is a sequel, but it's not really necessary to read that one to understand this story._

 _Also bear in mind that I tried to keep true to what we know about Logan and Rory's careers from the show, but it may not reflect reality in the slightest._

 _So with that taken care of, enjoy!_

The first time they tried a real relationship again, it was a disaster.

He hadn't seen or talked to her for five years. Part of him regretted that a little, but she _did_ say no, and he knew he had to start fresh if he was going to make any sort of clean break from the family legacy that had claimed him long before he was born. Later on, he knew he'd been naïve and stubborn to ask that kind of total commitment from her, but like most acts of youthful folly, it seemed to make sense at the time. He sometimes wondered if things would have worked out better for him if she'd actually been there to support him, but he also knew that she would never have been happy if she felt like he had forced it on her. He knew her too well: sooner or later there would be something he'd have forced her to give up, and she'd end up resenting him for it. He had thought at the time that they'd loved each other enough to overcome that, but when the rational side of him stopped to think about it objectively, he also knew it wouldn't have worked out. It was better for both of them for him to focus on the one thing he knew needed his attention.

Maybe there could be a chance for them later. He didn't want to admit it, but he still thought about it.

Of course, that single-minded stubbornness that drove all of these decisions proved to be something that didn't suit him well. The first start up company failed. Then the second. Then the third. When his father finally called him and offered him a chance to reclaim what he'd rejected, he took it. Maybe real maturity meant admitting that you just weren't good at the things you wanted for yourself, and you had to seize whatever opportunities were left.

Still, he wasn't yet ready to give up on everything that had been important to him during his brief stab at independence. He'd seen Rory's byline in various U.S. publications, usually attached to esoteric subject matter or occasional human interest pieces. He'd wondered how much things had changed for her, too: she didn't really seem to be on the path she dreamed for herself as a hard-hitting news reporter. Maybe their paths in life didn't have to be as uncompromising as they had seemed when they were younger, and they could meet somewhere in the middle.

Rory seemed happy to spend time with him in London. She'd transitioned from digital journalism to a job at The Washington Post a year after graduation, but she'd gotten burned out after two years of working the political beat. She had told him that she liked not being tied down to one subject matter or the continuous web of manipulation and scandal that seemed to characterize most of her previous work. She'd found that most people in life had more in common with her childhood roots than the coddled world where she met him. Logan couldn't really relate, but he'd always admired that she wasn't like him in this way. He was still in the position to help her move in different circles, and although Rory protested at first, it wasn't long before she began to enjoy drifting in and out of the gilded world she'd learned to navigate years before. The life they settled on in London seemed to be a nice blend of their two worlds: it wasn't long before she'd more or less moved in with him, although she was often gone on assignment. They were still the intellectual equals they'd always been, and the passion between them often seemed intensified by her absences.

However, she was still restless, and he wasn't. There was some sort of drama going on at home that she seemed reluctant to share with him: something about a cousin and a book press and her mother's long-term boyfriend that he vaguely remembered from years ago. She didn't seem eager to reintroduce him to her family, although he'd offered several times. As the months dragged on, he came to realize that their relationship wasn't ever going to return to the semi-domesticated existence they'd briefly cobbled together in their college years. He had his life in London and she had her life everywhere else: neither of them were willing to give up one for the other. As much as they enjoyed each other's company, he knew it eventually had to end, but they ended up dragging it on much longer than was necessary because neither of them wanted to give up the equilibrium they had briefly eked out. There were fights, estrangements, failed reconciliations, and finally an immense blow-out in which most of his leather furniture was sacrificed. She'd packed up for a freelance job with The Guardian the next day, and the first feeling that washed over Logan was relief. He could finally stop pretending that the dream he'd kept hidden away for so long had any possibility of taking shape in the real world. He'd spent months trying to pretend that the inevitable could be avoided, and now he knew that it couldn't. It was time to settle down to the life that he'd accepted.

It had been good enough for a very long time. He had no reason to believe that it wouldn't continue to be.

The next time he saw her, he was taken.

Sort of.

He _liked_ Odette. She was witty, educated, and beautiful, with a cutting sense of humor and a cynical appreciation of everything their social circle required of them. They had met through society connections and both of them knew it was exactly the sort of match that was required of them. He was tired of the shallow encounters and frivolous relationships that had filled his life for so long. He had tried the real thing, and while he still entertained notions of what could have happened if he'd had the chance to live it out the way it should have been, it was far too late to think of those things now. He had no grand passion for the woman he planned to spend his life with, but he fit into her world and she fit into his, and that would have to be enough.

He'd long since given up on wanting anything more.

He and Odette had an understanding. Eventually certain expectations would come into play once they were married, but until that point, there were certain things they agreed not to discuss. He was free to do what he liked as long as none of the visible consequences affected her, and so was she. They lived in different countries, after all. He was careful not to get caught up in any bad habits or emotional attachments that he'd find too hard to part with later on. His life had a certain end point, and most of the time he was fairly content with it.

That worked out splendidly until the day he saw a certain blue-eyed brunette in a lucky red dress in Hamburg.

He knew better than to try to attempt the relationship that had failed so miserably the last time. His relationship status was no mystery to her: she'd spent most of the previous year and a half ensconced in elite circles in Europe and NYC and his position was exalted to a point where she was well aware of any recent developments concerning him. The freelance assignments for The Guardian had petered out: when Logan offered his assistance once again, Rory hadn't seemed interested. As was often the case with her, she had her own life apart from him, and didn't need his help.

One Scotch-soaked lunch led to a passionate afternoon, and from that point on, he kept making more and more excuses to see her whenever she was in town. They quickly settled into a variation of the routine he had established with Odette: they enjoyed their time with each other, but nothing more was asked for or expected. Rory was still rootless in a way that he wasn't, even as the work she'd formerly counted on to sustain her became harder and harder to come by. He knew that he and Odette wanted the same things and that they cared about each other, and while it wasn't the stuff of romantic dreams, it was something he could count on. This last fling with Rory was merely a way of indulging in what good they'd found in each other before they parted again.

The trouble was that their relationship kept deepening right at the moment when he knew they should break it off. Rory started relying on him more and more as her personal circumstances continued to unravel. When her grandfather died, he'd gone around for days feeling that rotten twist in his gut because he simply wasn't able to stand by her as she said goodbye to the person who had meant so much to her. He didn't fight it when she moved half of her boxes into his apartment a few months later: he knew he was only part of what had become even more of a nomadic existence for her, but he also knew that even letting it get that far was a grave mistake. When he let his father agree to arrange the Conde Nast meeting on her behalf and saw that Rory silently acquiesce to it, he knew it was getting way out of hand. The arrangement with Odette only worked as long as he stayed emotionally unattached: eventually he'd have to give Rory up, and the longer it went on, the harder it was going to be in the end.

He also suspected he had no intention of doing so. He'd tried to be a better version of his father, but maybe it was time to give that up, too. He'd let Odette move in with him while still attempting to maintain this balancing act: if she was uncomfortable with anything that made its way back to her, she never let on. Still, part of him was relieved when Rory finally broke it off with him. He knew an honorable man would have called it quits long before that point, but so far all he'd learned about adulthood was how to stop testing what you were really capable of. He'd have liked to be more than this: it wasn't about what he deserved, but what the people around him did.

Still, the thing that killed him about all this is that Rory had never asked for anything different. She had never even asked if Odette had agreed to the arrangement that she and Logan had settled on. Maybe it wouldn't have made the situation between them any more palatable, but if he had thought that Rory had wanted more, then he would have wanted more, too. Maybe adulthood was about accepting your limitations, but the idealistic part of him, the part of him that knew he still loved Rory despite their differences, wanted so much to put a stop to all of this and plead with her not to give up yet. Maybe there was still some way that they could give up just enough to make a real life together and not hate each other for it.

If she only wanted that half as much as he did.

He could feel the unspoken question hanging in the air during their last night together. He held his breath, hoping against hope that she felt as much as he did that she would actually ask it.

 _"_ _So, are you really going to marry Odette?"_

He knew then that he had been wrong to think that she wanted to fight as much as he did.

 _"_ _That's the dynastic plan."_

She'd never asked for anything else.

Deep down, he'd always known that she wouldn't.


End file.
